the 4 elements...

[sylas vael]

the traditional 4 elements... EARTH-WATER-AIR-FIRE ...are known to just about everyone. but what about their nature. Earth is a Solid, Water is a Liquid, Air is a Gas, & what is Fire? i personally equate Fire as being a "Radiant". what is the common view? or is there one? let me know your thoughts.

[Nahemah]

There are four 'fundamental' states of matter,in Physics,the fourth is Plasma.

The Sun is one example,Lightning and electrical sparks are two more and some flames count, but fire is often transitional between states and of course it gets more complex than that,but there are four basic states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_m ... tal_States




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29

Scientists have recently discovered a fifth potential state,called 'quantum spin liquid' atm, but I haven't read much about it so far.

[sylas vael]

thank you. i probably should have known that. sometimes my ignorance amuses me & this is one of those times... lol. a good example of why not to drop out of school... lol. [grin]

[Nahemah]

Nah,it's a good question Sylas. [thumbup]

I like transiiton states and liminality is a big interest of mine so I like to explore it in as many forms as possible.It's good that you are interested and wondering about this.

The point of crossing from one state into another is something I find endlessly interesting and it's definately something worth pondering upon.

Plasma is very interesting and it's worth exploring more about it. [geek2] [greensmile]

And,I use a plasma ball in my practices sometimes.[Just throwing this in,at the end,lol]

Oh and I dropped out too. [shock2]

[Rin]

This is another good diagram which lays out roughly how the elements were understood in classical times, although I'm not sure there's a 1/1 correlation between those properties of the physical elements and their metaphysical counterparts. The physical elements correlation closer with the 4 states of matter, as has been explained, although fire could be equally taken to represent either energy or plasma.

I've been doing a lot of musing lately about the elements, they're an interesting topic. People take a lot of the associations we have for granted without considering whether they truly fit, or why. The thing to remember is that there's a difference between the metaphysical conception of Fire and the physical flame on a candle, although I think in some way they're interconnected, each representing some aspect of the other, as above so below and so forth. I think there's a lot missing from our understanding of the elements, primarily because we operate off associations made in earlier times before our greater understanding of the universe.

For example, take the Hot - Cold Spectrum. Usually Heat as an independent property is assigned to fire, and Cold to water, so you'd expect that those two would be at opposite ends. But what's the ultimate manifestation of cold? Solidity, which is a property of Earth. So is the ultimate expression of coldness (that is, a lack of heat and energy, the recessive power) Water, or Earth?

There are a lot of these questions which exist within our current conception of the elements, and we're going to have to solve them if we want to resolve magical practices with a 21st century understanding of the physical universe.